| PHILIPPINE
GOVERNMENT TROOPS CLOSE HIGHWAY AFTER REBEL AMBUSH COTABATO, Philippines
(AP)--Hundreds of travelers were stranded early Friday after government troops closed a
major road in the southern Philippines following a Muslim rebel ambush of an army patrol,
a military commander said.
One local resident was killed
and three soldiers were wounded.
Separatist guerrillas from the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF, fired rocket-propelled grenades at a platoon of
soldiers patrolling the road in Pikit, North Cotabato province, said Col. Hermogenes
Esperon, commander of the army's 602nd Infantry Brigade.
The ambush triggered a running
gunbattle with about 100 MILF guerrillas along a 15-kilometer stretch of the road linking
Cotabato City to Davao City, the largest urban center in the southern Mindanao region.
Soldiers stopped about 300
vehicles from passing through the road to prevent them from being caught in the crossfire,
Esperon said.
He said he expected the road
would be cleared of rebels and reopened later in the day.
In nearby Midsayap town,
suspected MILF rebels also attempted to blow up a 20-meter concrete bridge before dawn
Friday, Esperon said.
Esperon said one of five bombs
planted under the bridge exploded, causing slight damage, but didn't set off the other
four, which could have destroyed the bridge. No one was injured.
At least 184 government
soldiers and militiamen have been killed since January, the most serious fighting in the
southern Mindanao region since the 1970s.
The MILF is the larger of two
groups fighting for an independent Islamic state. The smaller but more radical group, the
Abu Sayyaf, is holding 21 mostly foreign hostages on southern Jolo island.
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